“Still nothing?”

“Nope, nothing with a Will anyway.”

Ever since Elobahn abruptly left the party we’ve been missing a scout or tracker of any kind. The closest we’ve come to filling the role is between me with my Will Detection and Abaris with his numerous detection-type spells. Unfortunately though, nothing here seems to have a will at all, assuming anything exists, and the mage’s efforts are dependent on his own mana capacity. He’s already run low twice today and needed to rest.

Meanwhile, the landscape of dead soil and mummified trees extends around us in every direction. Closer to the town – which the barely-legible sign at the gate identified as Darkwell – there were empty spaces with lines of raised dirt that Omorth identified as fields for growing crops. If there ever were crops there, they’re long gone though.

And yet, the mummified trees remain.

Still, no signs of a will. Not here, not anywhere.

What exactly did the past me do to this place?

(Drained it dry. Life doesn’t exist without mana, so nothing grows here, and nothing can grow here,) Nyx informs me.

But didn’t they... didn’t I have an army of wraiths or something? Or envious shadows or whatever it was?

My Assistant shrugs. (No idea. Oh, here’s one! Why don’t you try calling for them?) she jeers.

You know what? Fine. Fuck you, I’m going to do exactly that!

I spread out my will and reach the same way I do when I’ve used my Create Spawn Skill to make weak, far inferior wraiths, the ones I tend to use as scouts or to trigger traps.

And I feel an abject sea of responses to my call.

Everywhere.

They’re absolutely everywhere.

I hear Abaris shout in surprise as the absolute flood of wraiths pours forth from the trees, the ground, anything and everything that could conceal them. A split second later he already has a barrier up and has begun preparing large-area spells. He’s started casting one when I phase through his shielding spell and place a hand on his shoulder. Startled, his spell fizzles out as he looks at me in horror.

“It’s alright. They’re mine, apparently.”

***

My most recent discovery: wraiths, as in normal manaphages, don’t have a will of their own. None at all. The closest they seem to exhibit is a rudimentary means of following a limited set of orders, the will of another.

Mine, apparently.

As near as I can tell, their last instructions were to hide and never reveal themselves until they died. I’m assuming I can thank ‘True Hero’ Feldspar for that.

Unsurprisingly, I can disassemble these wraiths no differently from the ones I’ve created myself, and so I’ve begun doing exactly that, drawing their ash into myself.

Another interesting discovery is that the amount of ash in my spectral body influences my weight when I use my Verum Corpus Skill to manifest a human – or more specifically, Indra – body for myself. The uncomfortable creaks from the floorboards in the rickety house we’ve claimed attest to it. In response I’ve begun reinforcing the building with the same transparent ash-derivative material from which I made windows for the structure, and it’s already having a noticeable effect.

That and it’s repurposing some of my newfound bulk, which continues to pour in through the walls and floorboards to be dismantled and absorbed.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

It didn’t take long for me to convince my party that I had this situation under control, but that certainly doesn’t mean they’re taking it any kind of well. Pearl is huddled in a corner clutching her staff, near silently repeating a litany of prayers and protective charms. Meanwhile, the barbarian is curled up on the sofa I’d brought from my lair, quietly muttering ineffective words of comfort to Philip, who is absolutely beside himself in terror.

But don’t think I haven’t noticed that you hiss harder at me, you little bastard.

My death knight is simply standing by my side, but I can feel through the bond I’ve formed with her through my Blood Pact Skill that she’s trying not to look at them, or pay any attention to them at all.

If anyone is truly taking it well it’s the diminutive mage, entirely because I had a rather large specimen float close to him so he could thoroughly inspect it with a vast array of diagnostic spells, punctuated by exclamations as he makes more and more ‘startling discoveries’ and so forth.

Maybe an hour or so later, the stream of my kin thins and then stops entirely. Huh.

Out of curiosity, I leave the house the fast way – phasing through the walls – and head in the opposite direction of our previous trek before again calling for my kin.

And sure enough, more come billowing in from that direction.

(Looks like you have a limited range,) Nyx comments.

Yes, I’d have to agree. This would also explain the reason why there can be so many across the planes, but the only ones that have come when I called before are the ones I made myself.

I direct the most recently called batch to circle the town and attack anything that isn’t myself, my party, or that infernal housecat. Just in case. There are still occasional incursions by particularly crazy adventurers bent on proving their personal badassery by surviving here, after all. Based on that alone, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that there are countless wraiths across the plane, those adventurers have to have been fighting something after all.

And yet, despite a handful of discoveries, I remain terminally bored.

I begin returning to the town myself when Izahne finally catches up with me. Panting with her hands on her knees, she says, “You’re way too fast! Tell me if you’re going to go somewhere, alright?”

I give my wife a flat look and continue walking. “I was just going to check something and come back.”

She stands to her full height and turns to follow. “What did you find out?” she asks.

I tip my head back to look at her over my shoulder.

(She’s probably just curious,) Nyx says with a sigh.

Fair enough.

“Apparently, my ability to call my kin has a limited range. I moved half a mile away from the town and could call more, where I’d drained them all from the vicinity of the town itself.”

“That makes sense,” she says with a nod.

Without another word, I begin searching other houses. It would seem this town had a fairly large population, at least by the number of dwellings. Most of what I find is rusty tools and a few weapons, all of which are in no state to be used.

…

Although.

(Oh gods, what now?)

I focus on one of the unusable metal tools – Izahne identifies it as a gardening trowel, much more helpful than Identify which once again only reports ‘[Tools]’ – and use The Ravages of Time, one of my Skills that tends to go unused.

But, I try using it differently than I usually do. When I use it, I can feel a flow around the target, as though the time itself were twisting. As soon as the Skill activates, I focus on the twisting sensation, and with moderate force I’m able to stop it, and then twist it in the other direction as my death knight gasps in surprise.

I now hold in my hand a shiny tool, as pristine as if it were fresh from the crafter.

This has implications, sure, but now I’m unexpectedly exhausted... Apparently doing that in general is a huge mana sink, so I’ll have to use it sparingly.

I decide I’m going to lay down for a while, for no other reason than it somehow feeling like the right thing to do when I’m this spent, and so I head for the claimed house with Izahne in tow. Since she’s there, I actually bother opening the door as I need to, and she closes it behind us.

And of course, right when I want to rest, Abaris runs up excitedly and starts babbling about discoveries and implications.

“Woah woah there, slow down. I can’t understand everything you’re trying to say right now,” I interrupt.

He takes a breath, but I can still see his clenched fists shaking with excitement. “Alright. Alright. But, these findings... this changes everything we know about them!”

I sigh and tip my head to the side. “Are you sure? I thought nobody really knew that much about wraiths to begin with.”

“That’s true, yes,” he nods, “but now we also know that they aren’t strictly alive. Your confirmation that they lack a will of their own, combined with a near-programmed response to their environment, classifies them closer to automatons or golems.”

“Are you sure?” my death knight asks.

“Oh, positively! Unquestionably! And that’s not all, no no not at all! I’ve also made another very important discovery!” he practically shouts.

“And what’s this important discovery? The short version please, I want to lay down.”

He looks at me confused for a moment before gathering himself. “Apologies, I just didn’t expect you to ever want to rest of your own volition. Yes, the discovery!”

He points to the single wraith still floating to one side in the common room. “They’re made of the same thing as you.”

I sigh a cloud heavy with what is definitely the same thing as me.

“I mean!” he quickly corrects, “Not simply the same material. The same thing.”

I stare at him. “Wait, what? What are you getting at?”

He grins uncomfortably wide. “THEY ARE PART OF YOU.”